Scenes from the Beauty Shop

Today I managed to get the two white guys in for hair (fleece) appointments-
and boy, did they need it!

Frank and Felix were both really badly felted all down their backs-

Which made for some pretty tough clipping. My clipper hand is really shot.

But they were both pretty good sports

I think they were both just really relieved to be rid of those heavy, matted coats!

I was able to salvage some wool from each fleece that might be spinnable once I trim the tips off, but there is a whole lot of wool that is just completely felted in slabs.

I haven’t thrown it on the compost yet, though- because I’m thinking that maybe some use for it will present itself.

For now, its just hanging out outside on a rocked area, where hopefully the heavy rains predicted for the next couple of days will give it a cold water rinse and me some time to think about what it might be good for!

Guess I really do need to shear these guys twice a year.
Poor Felix looks all naked and lumpy after his haircut, but I’m sure he’ll fluff out and curl up pretty quick.
Will be interesting to see how much fleece they put on between now and Sept/Oct.

Get growing, guys!

Advertisements

Like this:

LikeLoading...

Related

I had a lot of matting this year, too, Denise (though I still haven’t skirted my fleeces to see how bad they are). Between that and the pulling they all did (broken fleeces on 4 out of 5 for all the rubbing and itching they were doing that last month or so before shearing), I’m thinking I’ll be shearing bi-annually as well. I wish mine were as reasonable as yours at being handled! I might consider doing it myself if they were, but as it is will probably hire $omeone this fall.

Maybe its a weather thing. It has been a pretty wet year. Both Edgar and Chone were sheared in the fall, and their wool seems to be in pretty good shape, so I’m definitely going to send everyone back to the beauty shop in Sept/Oct. I’ve found that usually once I get ahold of the guys they cooperate ok- especially if I give them massages as I go along. 🙂

Yep. Messy and Lumpy. Those might be my new nicknames for Frank and Felix. Silly buggers. Hope they can manage to keep themselves tidy through the summer so I’ll at least get a nice fall fleece from each of them this year!

Try what Punkin’s Patch did. She had put a fleece in the washing machine and it accidently aggitated, so she ended up with what looked like a felted wreath. So she decorated it and put it up on her front door. Looked awesome!